Hell is Other People: The Importance of Controlling Pedophilic Activity

Abstract

"Hell is other people" are Garcin's words in Sartre's 'Huis Clos' (Sartre, 1990: 95). The three key characters in this play "are in hell precisely because they are prevented by their own choices from establishing any proper relations with those around them" (Manser, 1967: 98). The notion of proper and improper relationships is central to the theme of this chapter - child sexual abuse, arguably the ultimate form of an improper relationship. The three "characters" of this paper are the people who are engaged in committing, reporting and controlling pedophilic activity. The community's and society's engagement with this crime involves a degree of fear, which can obstruct the development of preventative solutions. The community (in this discussion) are all people affected by the acts of the offender, such as victims and their family, friends, as well as police, lawyers, journalists and commentators. Cases of child sexual abuse cause a significant degree of alarm for a number of reasons. Part of the panic arises from the range of social identities of those found guilty; generally speaking, offenders cover a broad demographic and they cannot be easily differentiated from other members of society. Another aspect of the fear is the lack of power felt by parents and society in general when trying to protect their children - a strong societal and familial impulse - as statistics demonstrate that in the majority of cases, children are not molested by strangers, but rather by family members and friends. These issues collide to cause an overwhelming and emotional response to cases of alleged child molestation, which often results in public demand for increased punishment and control of offenders, regardless of whether empirical evidence suggests that the sanctions proposed offer any additional safety to children.